Athan's apartment smelled like oregano and melted cheese, and Luca's stomach growled the moment they stepped through the door.

  He'd changed out of the dress uniform the second they'd unloaded their visitors. White t-shirt, jeans, and the comfortable anonymity of not being Captain Rossi for a few hours. Emily had his red hoodie again, the same one she'd appropriated during their frantic escape five months ago, and it hung oversized over her shorts, sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

  Near the door, a pile of duffels and luggage sat waiting. Their stuff. The belongings they'd left behind when they'd fled Genesis Platform in the middle of the night, alarms blaring and soldiers at their backs. Five months later, and here it all was. Waiting.

  The place was already packed. Ryan and Chris had claimed spots near the kitchen counter, Joey was wedged into the corner of the dining table with a slice of pizza, and Danny sat in his wheelchair with Zoe perched comfortably on his lap. Alessio moved through the small space, passing plates and refilling glasses.

  "Finally," Matteo called from near the oven where he was helping Athan pull out another pizza. "We were about to start without you."

  Chris grinned from his spot by the counter. "Traffic was terrible."

  "We flew here in a shuttle," Ryan pointed out.

  "Terrible shuttle traffic."

  Karen and Michael were already settled at the dining table, Karen with a glass of wine and Michael deep in conversation with Joey about something medical. They looked completely at home.

  They have been, Luca thought. Karen and Michael had been the Rossi family's neighbors for years, back before the System.

  "Luca!" Athan waved him over. "Grab a plate before it's all gone."

  But before Luca could move, a young woman stepped out from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of salad. Brunette, athletic build, maybe eighteen or nineteen.

  "Oh," she said, stopping when she saw Emily. Her accent softened the vowels. "Hi. I'm Anastasia."

  "Emily," Emily said, smiling. "Nice to meet you."

  Matteo appeared behind Anastasia, suddenly very interested in adjusting the pot on the stove. "Yeah, uh, Anastasia's a friend. From, you know. Around."

  Karen's eyebrow rose so high it nearly disappeared into her hairline.

  Luca caught Emily's eye. She was trying very hard not to smile.

  "A friend," Karen repeated, her tone absolutely neutral.

  "Yep," Matteo said, still not looking at anyone. "Just a friend."

  Anastasia's cheeks went pink, but she didn't contradict him. Instead, she set the salad bowl down and moved to help Alessio with the drinks.

  "Anyway," Athan said loudly, clearly rescuing his son from further interrogation. "Luca, grab some pizza. Emily, there's room at the table if you squeeze in next to Zoe."

  There wasn't really room anywhere, but they made it work. That was the thing about family dinners. You always made it work.

  Luca grabbed a plate with two slices and looked around for a spot. The only available seat was the couch.

  Should be fine, he thought, settling into the cushions.

  Three seconds later, Matteo dropped onto the couch beside him, plate balanced on his knee.

  A second after that, Alessio claimed the other side.

  And then Anastasia, with absolutely nowhere else to sit, perched herself on the armrest next to Matteo.

  Luca was officially trapped.

  He caught Emily's eye across the room. She and Zoe were squeezed together at the dining table, and both of them were grinning at him like this was the funniest thing they'd seen all day.

  Luca raised his hand in a subtle gesture. Help.

  Emily's grin widened. She turned to Zoe and whispered something that made Zoe snort into her wine.

  Traitor.

  The conversation split naturally as they ate. Athan, Chris, Ryan, and Michael clustered near the kitchen, plates balanced on the counter as they talked. Karen stayed at the table with Emily, Zoe, and Anastasia. Joey remained wedged into his corner, content to listen and eat.

  Luca caught fragments of both conversations from his trapped position on the couch.

  "...can't make the numbers work," Athan was saying, gesturing with his fork. "Stress-testing hull configurations for two years. A ship that size needs massive structural support just to handle the thrust loads."

  "Steel-graphene composite," Chris said. "That's what the ship uses. Sixty percent of titanium's weight, three times the tensile strength."

  "That defies material science," Athan said.

  "That's TL9," Ryan replied, grinning.

  Michael shook his head in amazement. "This is going to change everything. Ship construction, orbital habitats, the colony program..."

  "Speaking of which," Karen said, and the room went quiet. She set down her wine glass and looked at Athan. "How's the reverse engineering coming? On the FTL drive?"

  Athan's expression shifted from excited to frustrated. "We're still months away. Maybe more. The scans Luca's team left behind, they're like trying to reverse engineer a smartphone from a photograph. We understand the basic principles now. But the actual geometries, the power distribution networks..." He shook his head. "It's not making sense yet."

  "Does the UER still have it?" Emily asked. "The Vanguard drive?"

  "Yeah," Athan said. "Last I heard, they've got a dedicated team working on it. Underground facility, completely off the books. But no major breakthroughs."

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Luca felt Emily's eyes on him from across the room. He knew that look. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

  Don't, her expression said.

  He caught Ryan's eye instead. Ryan was grinning.

  "Actually," Ryan said, "we might be able to help with that."

  Emily closed her eyes. "Ryan—"

  "What?" Ryan asked. "We all have our multitools... It scans the composition, alloy ratios, energy signatures, and circuit pathways. If any of us can get within two meters of that drive, we don't need to steal it. We can clone the blueprints. They're built into our TL9 armor."

  Karen's attention snapped to him. "What are you talking about?"

  "We got tools as a reward in Alpha Centauri," Chris explained. "All seven of us. The multitools can scan equipment and generate full technical schematics. Anything below TL9, complete fabrication specs. At TL9, detailed diagrams."

  Athan had gone very still. "You're saying you can scan the FTL drive and get complete schematics?"

  "The Vanguard one?" Luca said, resigned to where this was going. "Yeah. Absolutely. It's only TL8. We can generate the schematic, a blueprint. Everything you'd need to build more of them."

  The apartment went quiet except for the faint hum of the climate control.

  "There's one problem," Emily said quietly. "We'd need to scan it in person. The range on these things is maybe two meters."

  "Where is it?" Luca asked, looking between Karen and Athan.

  Athan opened his mouth, then closed it, glancing at Karen.

  Karen's expression was unreadable for a long moment. Then, slowly, she smiled. "The Large Hadron Collider. CERN, in Switzerland. Underground, maximum security, completely classified."

  Zoe straightened on Danny's lap, her eyes lighting up. "Count me in."

  "I thought that was secret," Michael said.

  "It is," Karen replied, still smiling. "But I didn't become a Patrician by respecting other people's secrets."

  Anastasia was staring at Karen with something like awe. Matteo just looked resigned, like he'd seen this before.

  "So," Luca said carefully. "Do you think they'll let us scan it?"

  Karen laughed, short and sharp. "The UER Council would rather burn the drive than give the IFC access to it." She paused, and her smile turned calculating. "But what they don't know won't hurt them. One of the victory tour stops is Geneva. Science symposium. We'll handle the details."

  Michael set down his wine glass. "This is insane."

  Karen looked at Luca. "We'll talk logistics later. For now, eat your pizza."

  They finished dinner in a blur of conversation. By the time Karen and Michael stood to leave, Luca's head was spinning.

  "Don't forget about the charter samples," Karen said, pulling on her coat. "I need everything you collected. All the data, all the specimens, everything."

  "We'll bring it when we come down to the Moon," Luca promised.

  Karen nodded, then paused at the door. Her eyes swept the apartment, taking in the crowded space, the empty plates, the comfortable chaos of too many people in too small a space.

  For a moment, something soft crossed her face. Something that looked like grief.

  She's thinking about Mom, Luca realized. About dinners like this when she was still alive.

  "Thank you for dinner, Athan," Karen said quietly.

  "Anytime," Athan replied, and meant it.

  Karen and Michael left, the door sliding shut behind them.

  The apartment felt bigger without them, but not by much.

  Alessio started dealing, explaining the rules as he went. Capture cards that add up to specific values. Sweeps clear the table. The seven of coins is worth a point.

  It took exactly one hand for Alessio to realize he'd made a terrible mistake.

  Ryan won without even trying. Danny, still refusing to get up from his chair, called out plays to Zoe that swept the table clean.

  "Wait," Alessio said, staring at the cards. "How did you—"

  "Seven of swords was played second," Danny said from across the room. "Three of coins in the fourth hand. That left the six and ace of coins still in play, which meant—"

  "You remember every card?" Matteo asked.

  "Don't you?" Ryan replied, genuinely confused.

  Alessio looked at Luca. "This isn't fair."

  "What?" Luca said innocently.

  "You're all Level 74. Your attributes are ridiculous. Memory, perception..." Alessio gestured at the cards in frustration. "You're playing a different game than we are."

  "I resent that," Ryan said. "I'm also extremely talented."

  "You have enhanced Intelligence stats," Alessio countered. "That's not talent. That's cheating."

  Zoe laughed. "We're not cheating. We're just better at cards than you."

  "Because of your advanced classes!" Alessio protested. He set down his cards and stood, moving to the bookshelf to grab a notebook. "This is exactly why I've been trying to catalogue everyone's builds. What did you all get when you broke Level 60?"

  "Yeah," Luca said. "We can share that. It's not like it's a secret what our classes are anyway."

  Alessio's face lit up. "Really? That'd be incredible for the IFC archives. Most people who hit Level 60 are being really secretive."

  "Tactical advantages," Chris said. "If people know your exact capabilities, they can counter them."

  "After we finish destroying you at cards," Ryan said, picking up his hand again.

  They played another round, which Emily won while simultaneously checking something on her tablet.

  Alessio threw down his cards. "I'm done. This is depressing."

  Joey had found some talk show on the screen. Nothing earth-shattering, just people discussing movies and music and normal things that had happened on Earth while they'd been gone.

  Emily immediately started writing. "We need a better movie library. Add that to the procurement list."

  By the time the conversation wound down, Athan looked tired but happy. The kind of tired that came from a good day rather than a hard one.

  "You all heading back to the ship?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Luca said, standing and stretching. "Don't want to crowd your bay."

  "Grab your stuff on the way out," Athan said, gesturing to the pile of duffels by the door. "Been holding onto it for five months."

  Luca looked at the luggage: his clothes, his books, the things he'd packed thinking he'd have time to settle in before launch. Before everything went sideways.

  "Thanks, Dad."

  They said their goodbyes, Alessio promising to send Luca the catalogue templates, Matteo walking Anastasia out with that same careful I'm-totally-not-dating-her energy that fooled absolutely no one.

  The shuttle ride back to the Triumph was quiet. Everyone was full of pizza and tired in the best way. Duffels and bags piled around their feet.

  Emily sat next to Luca, her hand finding his as the ship came into view against the star field.

  Home.

  Luca's quarters on the officer’s deck were exactly as he'd left them that morning. Messy. Clothes draped over the chair. His armor stand in the corner. The bed unmade because he'd gotten up in a hurry.

  Emily closed the door behind them with a soft click, the sound sealing them into their own world. She leaned back against it, watching him with that look, the one that stripped away the captain, the hero, the survivor, and left just Luca. Her green eyes dark and intent, lips slightly parted, like she was already tasting him.

  "That was nice," she said, voice low, almost husky from the wine and laughter.

  "Yeah." Luca crossed to her, close enough that she had to tilt her head back slightly to meet his eyes. "My family loves you, they always have."

  She laughed. "Your brothers are ridiculous."

  "They're idiots." He reached up, fingers brushing her jaw before tucking that same stubborn strand of blonde hair behind her ear. His thumb lingered, tracing the line of her cheekbone. "But they mean well."

  "Matteo and Anastasia are totally together."

  "Oh, absolutely." His hand slid down. "Terrible liars, both of them."

  Her hands came up, palms flat against his chest, fingers curling into the thin fabric of his white T-shirt and that stupid rocket-ship design on it. She could feel the steady thrum of his heart speeding up under her touch. "That was intense."

  Luca's hands settled on her hips, thumbs slipping just under the hem of his oversized red hoodie to find the soft skin of her waist. "My family?"

  "No." She tilted her head, giving him better access as his mouth trailed kisses down her neck. "Karen."

  He hummed in agreement, lips pausing at the spot just below her ear that always made her shiver. "She's a lot."

  "She cares though." Emily's fingers twisted in his shirt, pulling him impossibly closer. "In her terrifying, I'll-execute-people-in-opera-houses-for-you kind of way."

  "That's our Patrician."

  She laughed again, the sound breaking into a soft gasp as his hands slid higher under the hoodie, palms spreading across the bare skin of her back.

  Emily laughed, then kissed him, celebrating being home, being together, being alive after five months of impossible odds and alien worlds.

  "We're home," Emily murmured against his mouth.

  "Yeah," he said, lifting her effortlessly. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her the few steps to the bed, lowering her onto the unmade sheets without breaking the kiss. "We are."

  Through the viewport beyond them, the Genesis Shipyard's lights twinkled in the distance. Beyond that, millions of kilometers away, Earth hung in the darkness. Home. Family. Real coffee.

  Emily pulled back just enough to look at him, her expression soft and certain and his.

  "Hi," she said, smiling.

  "Hi," Luca replied.